Notes from the Authoress: I had this idea and it wouldn't leave me alone. I've been sick, and consequently lazier than usual, so none of my usual pretteh format. This is a rather random story, but I had to type it up or it would keep bothering me. The italics are a flashback. Roses are red, violets are blue. I don't own Naruto, and neither do you.

Shikamaru was well known through junior high and high school, when people actually realized he was there, to sleep in all classes. That changed, however, in his last year of high school, when people were surprised to notice he started staying awake in Grammar. Nobody but Chouji and Ino, his two best friends (and not for lack of trying to get rid of Ino, mind), knew why. Chouji was sympathetic. Ino thought it was funny as hell.

Shikamaru hated the first day of school. Summer break was always such a tease. Chouji woke him up once math class ended, and Ino started chattering away about gossip as they headed to Grammar (usually she spared Chouji and Shikamaru the gossip, but Sakura had started going to an alternate school, leaving Ino no one to girl-talk with).

"I heard Kakashi-sensei retired this year," Ino said excitedly, her face lighting up. "They say the new teacher is really young, just got out of college. I hope it's a hot guy."

"You do know it's against school policy to date a teacher," Shikamaru reminded, but Ino just shot a glare at him. Shikamaru reminded himself that Ino did not like when people interrupted her gossip sessions. Troublesome woman, He thought with an audible sigh, but Ino was already moving on to how horrid some girl's outfit looked and no one noticed.

Outside of the Grammar classroom, there was a group of girls talking in hushed voices. Ino, apparently recognizing them, told Chouji and Shikamaru to stay put before running over. She came back several moments later, looking disappointed. "They say the new teacher's a girl," She said glumly. "Oh well, I suppose I can't have everything."

"Can we go in now?" Shikamaru grumbled. Ino rolled her eyes, but made a waving motion with her hand as if to give permission.

"I hope she doesn't give us homework," Chouji said hopefully as he opened the door and entered the classroom. Shikamaru started to follow him but stopped short.

Oh hell no.

"Hey! What's the hold up, Nara?" Ino said loudly, as she had bumped into Shikamaru when he stopped short. She immediately took a step back and kicked him into the room with her high-heeled shoe. Shikamaru stumbled inside, but caught himself before he fell, then went to rubbing his back gingerly. There was definitely going to be a bruise there…

"Well, well, well. I didn't happen to see your name on the roster, Shikamaru-baka."

"Should've read it better then," Shikamaru mumbled under his breath before choosing the seat farthest from the teacher's desk.

Unluckily for him, the new teacher had already written a seating chart, which she put into effect once the whole class arrived.

Shikamaru knew it would be a bad year when his desk was in the first row, front and center. He was now sure that the teacher knew he would be in her class and planned how to torture him days before school had even started.

Temari never did like him.

Everyone liked Temari-sensei. She was strict and harsh, but she only gave homework to people who should have gotten detention. Temari-sensei said that detention didn't help anybody, so instead she gave them extra work, and one really had to get on Temari-sensei's bad side for it.

Consequently, Nara Shikamaru had Grammar homework every night.

"She hates me," Shikamaru stated as he stared down at the instructions for a ten page essay due the next day. "She's trying to make my life miserable. Chouji, just shoot me now." He dropped his head on his desk and groaned. He knew if he didn't do the assignment, he'd be having his third chat of the year with the principal tomorrow, and he found the chats to be very, very troublesome.

Chouji always went to Shikamaru's house after school to do homework because a) they liked hanging out, and b) Shikamaru wouldn't do his homework otherwise. Ino often tagged along if she didn't have anything better to do, which was why she was sitting on the floor with her history book and a lot of papers.

Shikamaru's room was very messy. There was a cleared path to his bed and his work desk, but other than that, there was no way to move freely. Ino had cleared a working area on the floor, causing her to be surrounded on three sides by mile-high piles of Shikamaru's junk.

"You do know it smells in here, don't you?" Ino asked grudgingly, ignoring Shikamaru's whining. She had opened a window and sprayed the room with her perfume, which was a bit stifling, but still she complained.

"That's just his laundry," Chouji informed her. "His mother hasn't come through for her weekly purge yet."

"Ew," Ino whined, shuddering a bit.

"Ino, if you write this paper for me, I'll…do something for you that's not troublesome," Shikamaru said, although it came out muffled because his face was still against the desk.

"Uh-uh, no way, I'm already doing a history report," Ino snapped. "Ask Chouji."

Shikamaru grunted, and Chouji smiled sheepishly. "I already told him no. Temari-sensei knows my writing style."

Ino smirked a bit. "You'll just have to do it yourself then, Shikamaru. I'm looking forward to this. I've never seen you actually work." As soon as she finished speaking, she wrinkled her nose a bit, pulled out her perfume bottle again, and sprayed the three piles around her before putting it back. Shikamaru and Chouji already knew better than to say anything, although Shikamaru was resenting the fact that the flowery, girly smell would stay for days.

Shikamaru sat up, groaning as he looked over the essay instructions again. Temari did hate him, ever since they had met really. She'd been a senior while he was in his freshman year, and they'd gotten into a fight for reasons Shikamaru couldn't remember. Shikamaru gave up because it was too troublesome, even when he had gotten the better of her (he didn't like fighting girls, but she was trying to rip his throat out so he made an exception). She had bashed him over the head with a metal object he never got a good look at before the teachers could break through the ring of excited students to stop her. He remembered waking up in his bedroom three days later with a blasting headache.

After that, they avoided each other as much as possible, although Temari did kick another girl's ass for him when Shikamaru got in another fight (it had been a bad year for him, as he got on the bad side of three girls—Kin, Temari, and Tayuya). She went to college when she graduated, and Shikamaru clearly expected never to see her again.

He was kinda wishing that he would have been nicer to Temari now. Maybe he wouldn't have a ten page essay ahead of him.

"Here," Shikamaru grumbled as he dropped his ten page essay on Temari's desk. Class would be starting in about a minute.

Temari looked down at the papers before looking up at him. "I'm surprised you actually did it, Nara-san." In class, she called him Nara-san, although if the room wasn't too full or if she saw him in the halls, he was still Shikamaru-baka. Most teachers used 'kun' and 'chan,' but because Temari was so much younger than most teachers, she tended to be more level with the students.

Shikamaru shrugged before going to his desk. He talked to Temari as little as possible, although he stayed awake in her class because she did things like pouring water over his head and dropping ice cubes down the back of his shirt. She also gave him a lot of extra work for his troubles. For once, it was less of an effort to stay awake in class than to sleep in it. Luckily, the other teachers weren't catching on to Temari's technique yet.

The bell rang, and Temari rose from her to desk to stand at the front of the class. It took Shikamaru a few moments to realize she was holding his essay. "I've rearranged our lesson for today. We'll be doing individual reading; I told you all to bring your books to class everyday, but if you don't have it, just read along with someone else and I'll let it go this time as long as you're quiet. Nara-san, I'd like to speak to you after class. Yamanaka-san, I'll be stepping out of the room for a moment, please keep everything under control."

Shikamaru briefly wondered if jumping out the window was worth escaping whatever Temari wanted to talk to him about.

Ino walked out of Grammar that day with homework, because she did a very bad job of keeping anything under control. In fact, she instigated a lot of the trouble.

Shikamaru stayed behind, the only sign that he realized the class was letting out being that he waved goodbye to Chouji.

"Well," Temari stated as she sat on her desk and crossed her legs. Shikamaru made the mistake of looking up and saw more of Temari's thighs than he ever wanted to. He quickly looked back down, cursing Temari's liking for skirts. "Congratulations."

If there was anything Shikamaru was expecting to hear, it wasn't that. "What?"

Temari laughed and shook her head in disbelief. "I thought for sure you would have figured it out by now. I haven't been giving you homework assignments just to be spiteful; I've been giving you the work to get you into an advanced placement class. It'll get you college credits now so you won't have to work as hard in the future. A mind like yours, I figured you might as well get out of school as fast as you can to make some contribution to society. Although," She added thoughtfully. "Knowing you, you'll do something stupid instead."

Shikamaru had the sneaking feeling that Asuma-sensei had told her the results of his IQ test…

"What if I don't want to be in an advanced placement class?" Shikamaru demanded, obviously frustrated with her. He hated the extra work that came with advanced placement classes, as Asuma had gotten him into advanced math two years ago. It also annoyed him greatly that he hadn't figured out what Temari was doing because, now that he looked back, he could see the increasing difficulty with each assignment and how the subjects never seemed to align with what Temari was teaching.

"Too late. I thought you might say that, so I went and had you registered today," Temari said proudly, a smirk on her face. "Where did you think I went during class? I had to listen to Iruka-sensei scold me for nearly ten minutes about leaving my class unsupervised before he looked over your latest essay—he's been keeping up with all your work, you know—and he decided that you'll be accepted. The assignment for the actual class was five pages. You've obviously exceeded." She slipped off her desk and grabbed a piece of paper, placing it on his desk. "That's your new schedule, fit to your class change."

Shikamaru stuffed the paper into his bag without care. It didn't seem to bother Temari.

"On an unrelated note," Temari said calmly, noticing his increasing annoyance with her and feeling very proud of herself for causing it. "I was wondering what you're doing Friday night."

This was another of those 'what the fuck is she talking about moments?' that Shikamaru really disliked.

"If you're not doing anything," Temari continued, "I thought you might like to go on a date with me."

Shikamaru grudgingly stood up from his desk. This was one of those things where he really couldn't have her staring down at him (and, although he wouldn't admit it, he was very happy to be several inches taller than his teacher—and knew that she didn't like being shorter all that much). "Aren't student-teacher relationships against school policy?"

Temari shrugged. "Don't know; never read it. Most likely. So?"

Shikamaru wanted to ask if she knew she could loose her job over it, but he wasn't interested in getting in an argument with her, and was currently working out how he was supposed to escape this one. Illogically, he again considered jumping out the window. His logical mind took over, however, and he weighed his options.

Saying yes would mean he had to get ready for a date and actually deal with Temari for the night. If Ino caught any sign of it, the news would be around in two minutes.

Saying no had undeterminable consequences (he assumed she wasn't strong enough to lift her desk, but he didn't want to be hit over the head with that, as comas didn't really work for him that much).

Then he caught himself wondering why he wasn't completely disgusted about Temari asking him out, and why exactly was he thinking about what Temari might wear?

Shikamaru let out a heavy sigh. "I suppose, but you're picking me up."

Temari rolled her eyes. "Ever the gentlemen," She said sarcastically. "I'll pick you up at seven then. Dress casual."

Shikamaru tore the edge off a piece of paper in his bag and wrote down his address. Temari took the paper from him, and Shikamaru zipped up his backpack before grabbing it and leaving. He didn't have anything more to say to her, after all.

"What did Temari-sensei want to talk to you about?" Ino asked curiously. She was sure that it was normal teacher stuff, but gossip had been scarce lately and she was looking for anything.

Shikamaru shrugged. "Said my essay wasn't up to her standard; she's putting my in a different Grammar class."

Chouji looked disappointed. "Ah, man, Shikamaru, I really liked having you in three of my classes this year."

"Sorry."

Chouji quickly changed the subject, because Shikamaru sounded unsympathetic. "Well, what did your mom say about me sleeping over Friday night?" He asked curiously. They slept over each others houses often, but Shikamaru's mother liked to give the final word.

She'd said yes.

"We're having family coming over Friday," Shikamaru said, making sure to sound very, very annoyed with that thought. "She said Saturday." He'd tell Chouji about what happened with Temari later, but for now, Ino was listening too closely for comfort, so it was decidedly better to keep it to himself.

Notes from the Authoress: I think, sometime in the far future, I might like to write a story about their date, or maybe a short-chapters story about a bunch of mean things Temari does to Shikamaru—ahem, I mean what went on in her classes and stuff about their relationship. We'll see. Anyway, review!